ARC Book Review: Stitching Snow – R.C. Lewis

Princess Snow is missing.
Her home planet is filled with violence and corruption at the hands of King Matthias and his wife as they attempt to punish her captors. The king will stop at nothing to get his beloved daughter back — but that’s assuming she wants to return at all.
Essie has grown used to being cold. Temperatures on the planet Thanda are always sub-zero, and she fills her days with coding and repairs for the seven loyal drones that run the local mines.
When a mysterious young man named Dane crash-lands near her home, Essie agrees to help the pilot repair his ship. But soon she realizes that Dane’s arrival was far from accidental, and she’s pulled into the heart of a war she’s risked everything to avoid. With the galaxy’s future — and her own — in jeopardy, Essie must choose who to trust in a fiery fight for survival.

First Sentence: It took me seventeen seconds to decide Jarom Thacker’s reputation as the sharpest fighter on Thanda had been exaggerated.

I received a copy of the book from the publisher in exchange for a honest review. All opinions are my own and I was not compensated for this review.My Review:

I have a big weakness for fairy tale retellings or retellings in general. If a book is a retelling, I just have to read it and even own it. This is why the second I saw the cover of Stitching Snow and saw the magic words “fairy tale retelling,” I just knew I had to snag a copy of one asap. My dream came true at BEA where I managed to snag an ARC of Stitching Snow (and also, a huge thank you to Disney Hyperion for sending me a copy!). However, to my dismay, Stitching Snow wasn’t exactly what it appeared to be and didn’t impress me much as you can see from my Till It Arrives feature. Now, I can finally explain why.

I’d lost fights before, plenty of them. Most times, I knew it would happen long before it was decided. This was no different, and I always shifted to the same strategy.
Hang in as long as you can, Essie. And hope you don’t get yourself killed. (ARC 99)

In case you guys don’t know, Stitching Snow is a retelling of Snow White. Let me tell you guys something that you probably don’t know about Stitching Snow though: Nothing I’ve read in Stitching Snow resembles the Snow White fairy tale. As everyone knows, the seven dwarfs play a big role in the Snow White fairy tale, but in Stitching Snow, the seven loyal drones mentioned in the summary barely appears. To be honest, I don’t even know who the seven loyal drones are – there are only three drones that I’ll consider as secondary characters, but even then, I’m not even completely sure if they are part of the seven loyal drones mentioned in the book’s summary. But Kelly, you guys might say. The princess’ name is “Snow,” so that should count right? WRONG. “Snow”‘s name isn’t really “Snow.” Yeah, what a disappointment.

Although I feel like Stitching Snow isn’t exactly a fairy tale retelling of Snow White, it did remind me of another fairy tale retelling though: The Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Meyer. Just the first few pages of Stitching Snow alone reminded me of Marissa Meyer’s series: both Essie and Cinder are mechanics, both book and series lives in a world with advanced technology and drones, both Essie and Wolf are fighters, and both books also have an outer space setting. There are other similarities between The Lunar Chronicles and Stitching Snow too, but they are also spoilers, so I rather not specify what they are.

An electronic voice greeted me on the other side of the door. “Essie Essie Essie.”
I wasn’t surprised to see the little robot lurking nearby, but I sighed anyway. “Didn’t I tell you to go home?”
“Home Essie home.” (ARC 5)

The first thing I noticed about Stitching Snow when I first started it was that the writing is hard to connect with and get used to. I don’t exactly know how to describe R.C. Lewis’ writing. It isn’t exactly awkward, but at the same time, it isn’t smooth and it doesn’t flow easily either. Reading through the book and connecting with any of the characters was a real struggle due to the writing.

Another issue I had with Stitching Snow is the romance. Just from reading the summary, it should be fairly obvious for us to conclude that Essie and Dane will get together, and they do. My problem with their relationship is that there was absolutely no chemistry between the two. Their relationship basically consists of Essie and Dane meeting, Essie thinking about how handsome Dane is, them two having disagreements, Dane randomly kisses Essie, Essie starts thinking about Dane 24/7, and suddenly bam!. Love. Nothing in their relationship made me cheer for them or root for them. Their relationship was bland, lacked the sparks, and was also a bit too cheesy for my taste.

He didn’t think these soldiers were worth it. They were just the pawns. (ARC 257)

The ending of Stitching Snow was so simple and anticlimactic. There was this seemingly huge problem that was revealed around the second half of the book. The problem revolves around why Snow disappeared from her home planet. My problem is that the way the problem was solved in Stitching Snow was just too simple. The way Stitching Snow ended made the second half of the book appear pointless to read about and a total waste of time. Think about it this way: the huge problem that made Snow disappear from her home planet? I can tell you how it was solved in five simple words, words I can’t reveal because it’ll be a spoiler (duh!). But hopefully, people who also read Stitching Snow would know what I mean.

So yeah, Stitching Snow was really disappointing. I don’t think I went into it with high expectations, so it’s really disappointing that Stitching Snow managed to disappoint me nevertheless. I know there are people out there like me who wants to read Stitching Snow because it’s a fairy tale retelling, but I strongly recommend you guys to borrow it first to get a feel for it.

Speak Your Mind

Well it looks like this is one book I can take off of my TBR list.lol Sorry you didn’t like it, I know I’m always disappointed when a fairytale retelling doesn’t live up to expectations.SarahO. recently posted…Stacking the Shelves (7)

Borrowing it…. I love retellings myself, but they have to resemble the original story at least a bit. Pay homage to it’s supposed inspiration or something. And it also can’t be basically a different version of a book that is already out now, with different character names. I was so interested in this one, but my interest just took a dive bomb. Sigh. The cover, however, is perfection!Jaime Lester recently posted…Spotlight on Writing Great Books for Young Adults

I’ve read about Stitching Snow here and there, but overall haven’t gotten a real feel for it until I read this review. Now I’m feeling like I should steer clear. Especially if it sounds so much like the Lunar Chronicles which I have yet to read (even when I own the first two books). But I’m glad I could be told what happens mostly. I can’t stand romances that happen so quickly so if it’s like that in this book I definitely don’t want to read it. I’ll only get disappointed and mad and I’d rather not waste my emotions on something I can avoid.

Wow. So you do like reading retellings. Me on the other hand have some mixed feelings with retellings. I hope I could jive into some soon, at least. Well, sorry for your review and reading.
Good thing I don’t read this genre. But I guess I might consider some if there are positive reviews on it.

I like fairy tale retellings and loved the Lunar Chronicles so was interested to see what you thought of this book! Sorry to read how disappointed you were with it! I don’t think I’d mind so much if it didn’t follow Snow White exactly but I’m not sure about the “cheesy” romance. I like your suggestion of borrowing it vs. buying it so I’ll do that and see for myself. Thanks for the great comments!

I’m sorry you didn’t enjoy the book. :( It really sucks when a book you are excited for becomes a big disappointment. I was thinking of reading this but from what you said, I probably won’t. I really do love fairytale retellings though.

I’m so sorry you didn’t like this one :( I completely understand what you’re saying, though I ended up loving it. Hype can really hurt a book in the long run. While I know there were few Snow White references and the “Seven Drones” weren’t really in the picture much, I loved the ones we DID meet. Especially Dimwit, who reminded me a lot of Iko from the Lunar Chronicles! And like you, I noticed a lot of comparisons to TLC books. It actually made me like Stitching Snow more! But again, I get where you’re coming from and I’m sorry this book let you down :(Meredith @ Pandora’s Books recently posted…Review: MARY: The Summoning by Hillary Monahan

I also love fairy-tale retellings and really, the words “fairy-tale retelling” really draws my eyes to that BOOK, that fairy-tale RETELLING, I can’t even tell you how much I’ve read, the Lunar Chronicles being one of my favorites (I’m impatiently waiting for Winter) and when I saw that “Stitching Snow” is a retelling of Snow White, I was interested THOUGH I will keep your review in mind when choosing whether or not to buy it… THANK YOU!

I also love fairy-tale retellings and really, the words “fairy-tale retelling” really draws my eyes to that BOOK, that fairy-tale RETELLING, I can’t even tell you how much I’ve read, the Lunar Chronicles being one of my favorites (I’m impatiently waiting for Winter) and when I saw that “Stitching Snow” is a retelling of Snow White, I was interested THOUGH I will keep your review in mind when choosing whether or not to buy it… THANK YOU!

I’m also a fan of fairy tale retellings. Too bad you didn’t like this one, I don’t know if I’ll want to read it. I think that the worst thing that can happen when a book has romance in it is when the characters simply seem to fall in love all of a sudden, without any development.Thais Pampado recently posted…O Aniversário de Anya

I too am a fan of retelling of fairy tales, this one has had lots of talk about and it is supposed to be great! I had it on my to read list but when I read it the structure of the story was not what I was expecting. There were lots of grammatical errors and it was not a retelling of Snow White! :( To bad I had not read your review first because I would not have purchased it for the price I paid!

I like fairytale re-tellings, The Lunar Chronicles are great examples of how you can change up the story and setting while still keeping the skeleton of the story intact. Sounds like this one didn’t do too well, which is too bad, as it seems like it could have been another great story. Side note, when I read the summary I also thought “Lemme guess, Essie and Dane are gonna end up together.. “

Wow!!!! A fairy tale retelling!?!?!? These are my absolute favorite kinds of books! That makes me so sad that there are so many negatives to this book though! At first I was like, “YES! I must read this as soon as possible!” but it seems like there are just too many downfalls to it. It’s a shame that it didn’t live up to expectations!

It sounds like a big departure from the original story. I usually love retellings, but this seems like it just kept the character’s name. Isn’t Snow White in the original (not Disney) story portrayed as a ditz? If they’ve taken away the personality (which does typically change in a retelling), they’ve taken away the supporting characters in the story, etc, saying it’s a retelling is kind of gimmicky. But maybe I’d think differently if I read it :)

I am not a fan of futuristic reads of any kind and your review of “Stitching Snow” just confirms the reason I don’t care for this type of read. Your review is informative and that is the reason I will not read this book.Terrie Fulk recently posted…Brenda Novak 12 Days Of Christmas Contest

I was actually looking forward to reading Stiching Snow. because i also like retellings but i;m also hard to impress. anyway, i recommend The Collectors’ Society. I have recently read this and it was amazing.Jothee recently posted…Book Review: THE COLLECTORS’ SOCIETY by Heather Lyons!

I have a weakness for fairytale retellings too! Dang. The cover is so pretty! I love retellings, but I loved Cinder so so so much. :( I also read a review of this book somewhere and it says that the protagonist is much more badass than Cinder, and I quite got inrigued with that, but yeah I’m having doubts as to whether I should still read this book.

That’s too bad that the book contains a huge duex ex machina… I hate it when the major conflict in the plot is solved so simply. I also really care whether a novel is well-written or not, so I guess that means I probably won’t be reading this one.Monica M recently posted…Review: Lark Rising by Sandra Waugh

Well, boo, this review makes me sad. To be fair, I didn’t even know this book existed until a few days ago when I kept seeing the cover pop up in my searches for fairy-tale retellings on Goodreads. But, after finding it I knew I wanted to read it! I’m always very doubtful of if I’ll love a retelling or not tho and based on the things you’ve said I’m pretty sure I’d feel the same way since I like retellings to keep the structure of what we know about the fairytale and weave a new design around it.

That sucks when a book is really disappointing, I’m wasn’t into fairy retellings much until I read The Lunar Chronicles and after the creativity spun in twisting the fairytales in that series, I can’t wait to get my hands on other retellings. It sounds like it’d be difficult to get invested in anything in the book, just reading your thoughts on the romance in the book is a bit of a turn off. I like slow burn, subtle development in my romances, I need more books with those.Isa recently posted…Review: The Girl of Fire and Thorns

Archive

Archive

Grab My Button

Disclaimer

Effortlessly Reading sometimes receives ARCs (Advance Reader Copies) from publishers or authors in exchange for honest reviews. Please note that no compensation of any kind has been provided in exchange for a review. Any use and/or duplication of my material without any permission is strictly prohibited.